To be released

Please backport with one commit (log message) for one change, not all at once, thanks. In general it is a good idea to wait a few days after release before beginning lots of changes, in case a "brown bag" release is needed. Otherwise we'd need to cut a new branch from the tag for that (to avoid brown-bag releases, last minute changes just before release are also discouraged).

Updates to vector querying

add flags -p and -g for text output instead of creating a new map. It would report which map(s) and feature(s)/cat(s) meet the query criteria.

allow multiple maps to be selected. This would directly address Eric's question. If the output is a map, it would be the equivalent of v.patch on all queried vector elements.

add operators "contains" and "adjacent". Contains=all vector features whose nodes are completely inside a polygon (or inside or touching the boundary). Adjacent=all vector features who share a node/point or line/boundary with the selecting feature. Because GRASS is topologically correct, adjacency information is readily available. --HB: op="not" too please.

maybe change option names from ainput and binput to selector and selected or queried. This would have to wait until GRASS 7, of course. I find ainput and binput not very clear where used in other vector operations either (maybe I'm just dense).

--HB: input order counts, so named map options have a function.

v.what (query using coordinates):

add flags -p and -g for current behavior (-pg could be the default if we wanted to do this before GRASS 7)

add "output=" option to allow v.what to create a new map from the results of its query, like v.select does

allow multiple maps for input, as with the suggestion for v.select

allow coordinates to be read optionally as a line or area boundary (-l or -a?) instead of only as individual points.

add operators overlap, contains, adjacent.(This also would make possible interactive vector selection with a mouse drawn box or polygon from the GUI)

In other words, have v.select and v.what work the same except that v.select uses a vector map for querying and v.what uses a set of coordinate points.

v.overlay (boolean combination of maps):

drop the ainput and binput. Replace with just input. --HB: careful, order of maps can matter.

allow multiple maps to be entered into input, not just 2

deprecate v.patch because v.overlay with the OR operator replaces it. (If we wanted to do this before GRASS 7, we'd have to create a new module, maybe named v.combine or something like that because this changes the default behavior of v.overlay).

--HB: does it completely? I could be totally wrong, but my thought was that v.patch is very fast and does not attempt to clean (overlay) features, just lump them together in the file. Certainly for most tasks v.overlay should be the suggested route in the documentation.

ps.map (I ask that this change is not backported until further notice. Only the minimal patch to backport the "b flag" should be considered. I'm still considering reverting parts of the rest. thanks, HB.)

GRASS 6.4.1

Any open Trac bugs which are blockers for 6.4.1 should be flagged as such in the bug report.

Look over old ​Gforge and ​RT bug trackers. Refile in trac as blockers if they are release-critical and close old reports with a link to the new one. Copy over all past discussion so it has context and history.